The present invention relates to an enclosure or housing and more particularly to an enclosure or housing for a machine tool.
Various machine tools, which are used for such purposes as milling, drilling, engraving or grinding, expel dust, fragments or other waste material which may harm an operator working in the area surrounding the machine tool. Such flying debris may also harm other machine tools adjacent the operating machine. For this reason, such machine tools are generally placed in housings which allow access to the machine tools. Housings also offer the significant advantage of reducing the noise emitted by some machine tools.
Many housings currently used with machine tools utilize doors which open from the middle towards the sides. Such doors require that the machine tool be surrounded by a sufficient empty floor space area so that the doors may swing freely and so that the operator may step back to allow the doors to swing. This additional area must not only be in the front of the machine but also at the sides since the doors will generally rest against the side of the housing. Other machine tool housings employ a lifting door riding on linear tracks. Such doors have the disadvantages of requiring great ceiling height to clear the operator's head and of being expensive to construct. Still others employ one or more sliding doors which also require additional floor space.
It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide an enclosure or housing for a machine tool which does not require a significant amount of floor space surrounding the enclosure or high ceiling clearance.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a housing or an enclosure for a machine tool which is easily opened and closed.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a housing or an enclosure for a machine tool, the operating mechanisms of which housing will not be fouled by debris discarded by the machine tool.